Mahmoud's "Dear George" Letter
I always get a warm feeling when I hear genocidal megalomaniacs quoting Scripture. In his just-released personal letter to George W. Bush, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad refers to the Bible and the Koran in his exaltation of a monotheistic deity.
The day will come when all humans will congregate before the court of the Almighty, so that their deeds are examined. The good will be directed towards Haven and evildoers will meet divine retribution. I trust both of us believe in such a day, but it will not be easy to calculate the actions of rulers, because we must be answerable to our nations and all others whose lives have been directly or indirectly effected by our actions.
We can now expect George W. Bush to reply with his own deranged judicious musings on eschatology based on a similar reading of Scripture. The people of the world are waiting.
Ahmadinejad also speaks of the importance of transparency in government and a free press (“In media charters, correct dissemination of information and honest reporting of a story are established tenets. I express my deep regret about the disregard shown by certain Western media for these principles.”) Ah, yes, Iran: Paragon of a free and open media! But he saves some of his most pugilistic lines for the Holocaust and Israel.
Young people, university students and ordinary people have many questions about the phenomenon of Israel. I am sure you are familiar with some of them.
Throughout history many countries have been occupied, but I think the establishment of a new country with a new people, is a new phenomenon that is exclusive to our times.
Students are saying that sixty years ago such a country did no exist. The show old documents and globes and say try as we have, we have not been able to find a country named Israel.
I tell them to study the history of WWI and II. One of my students told me that during WWII, which more than tens of millions of people perished in, news about the war, was quickly disseminated by the warring parties. Each touted their victories and the most recent battlefront defeat of the other party. After the war, they claimed that six million Jews had been killed. Six million people that were surely related to at least two million families.
Again let us assume that these events are true. Does that logically translate into the establishment of the state of Israel in the Middle East or support for such a state? How can this phenomenon be rationalised or explained?
He goes on to attack Israel from the perspective of democratic human rights — again, one of contemporary Iran’s great strengths — and the teachings of Jesus, Moses and “liberal values.”
It’s a bizarre read. In the end, one is left stunned by the knowledge that the fate of the world now lies in the hands of complete and total psychopaths.
Full letter.
“In the end, one is left stunned by the knowledge that the fate of the world now lies in the hands of complete and total psychopaths.”
Let’s not exaggerate.
Students are saying that sixty years ago such a country did no exist. The show old documents and globes and say try as we have, we have not been able to find a country named Israel.
Or Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, or Iraq! What’s his point?
True that, BZ. I’m amazed that a person who can send tens of thousands of children to early graves in the Iran-Iraq war can then turn around and highlight the brutality of Israel. Yes, the violence Israel inflicted against the Palestinians has been unfortunate to say the least, and condemnable at times. But Israel as a State during times of war (and I’m leaving out Irgun and Etzel) is responsible for maybe a hundredth of the death and violence inflicted by its neighboring states on their own populations. But now I’m starting to sound like a Hasbaraist…which is pointless. Cause it’s not like he cares.
Why do you play the innocent. The state of Israel is an anti democratic apartheid state . It was and is a settler state based on a bizarre mixture of zionist politic eugenics crackpot religious /Talmudic bigotry (bloodline legislation) If you doubt this just read the disgraceful Law of Return. The Israeli constitution is the the instrument that legiitimises the oppression of a racist state which has expelled the majority of its native population . This is not opinion but documented fact: what other country has the audacity to pontificate about human rights and democracy while violating /dispossessing its majority. Democracy means representing all the people that means 6 million arabs palestinians and not just 5million jewish israelis/settlers. The only just solution for Israel and I underline just, is the dezionification of israeli civil society, the repeal of the Law of Return; the integration of all palestinian arabs into a secular palestinian state, It is economic and racist nonsense to propose the viability of a two state solution .